Unistellar's EVscope - Hands-On First Thoughts Under Light-Polluted Skies
Updated: May 20, 2023
UPDATE 2020: Read our full REVIEW of the EVscope, or watch our REVIEW VIDEO on YouTube!
The EVscope is now available HERE.
If you have been following this channel over the last year, you may recall our video on CES 2018 where we saw some great astronomy-related stuff like Meade's newest telescopes, Vaonis' sleek Stellina, NASA's booth, Unistellar's Evscope, and the very affordable Hi-Yuni telescope.
This year we had the chance to go back to CES for just one day. We had a fun time despite how short it was, and sadly we did not see many astronomy innovations. We did get to keep some great souvenirs though!
Video of us doing some cheesy poses at the Canon Booth - CES 2019
Coincidentally, the following day one of the founders of Unistellar, Franck Marchis, whom we interviewed in last year's CES video, joined the Las Vegas Astronomical Society at the Neon Museum in downtown Las Vegas. Franck brought his latest EVscope prototype to test in the highly light polluted area. When we heard the news, we drove to the meet-up place and were happy to see that there was already an important crowd interested in both Unistellar and the LVAS members' telescopes.
Franck preparing the EVscope for the public
The Las Vegas Astronomical Society often holds free public events like these at several locations in and around Las Vegas. A few members volunteer their time and equipment to show the stars to people who hardly take the time to look at the sky as it is.
You may also learn many things about deep sky objects, astrophotography, and astronomy in general when attending these events, as members are very knowledgeable and love to share what they know with others!
If you live in Vegas, take a break and stargaze by clicking on THIS LINK to learn more!
Although the sky was fully covered by clouds when we arrived, we waited almost 3 hours for the Orion constellation to shine through an opening of clouds. In the meantime, Franck showed us a video taken on his phone from the night before of M42, and it was an observation taken right from his hotel balcony near the Strip!
It's interesting to know that because of how this telescope works (by projecting an image to the eyepiece that is a series of accumulated frames improving over time), you can easily take a video of what you see inside with your phone. He was also able to show us an actual image taken with the Evscope. Of course, our video does not do it justice as the whites popped out too much, but it was certainly impressive!
When we were finally able to see Orion's sword, Franck pointed his telescope to the Orion Nebula, and a group of people began to form a line.
As we waited for our turn, we witnessed everyone's reactions looking through the eyepiece for the first time. It reminded us of Unistellar's first demo videos shown on their Kickstarter page in the very early stages of the project.
Dalia looking through the eyepiece of the EVscope for the first time
When our turn came, we were honestly expecting to see a very noisy, over exposed image through the scope because of the insane amount of light pollution at this location, but what we saw was much better than we anticipated. After waiting for the clouds to clear for a few hours it became late and cold, but this is what we saw...
The Orion Nebula was very obvious and clear, the trapezium was neat, and we could even see a little bit of the running man nebula on the left. The best part? Faint pinkish color started to appear as the software built in the telescope started stacking up the images over the minutes that passed by.
Messier 42 - Taken by the EVscope and also how it appears through the eyepiece
Before the Neon museum closed, Frank invited us to a nearby parking lot to further observe with the EVscope. Sadly, at that point the sky was completely covered and we wouldn't have been able to see anything so we went home.
We hope we can fully test this telescope soon under both a dark sky in the desert and within the most light polluted city on Earth.
Just by curiosity, the image to the right is a 20 second single shot of M42 taken with our telescope from Las Vegas. Of course this was taken after long minutes of setting up and attaching everything. And to the left is Unistellar's M42, also taken from the light polluted Vegas, but with a very simple set up AND an image visible in the eyepiece.
You can see our post about our very first impressions of the EVscope from CES 2018 HERE, where we go more in depth about the product and its specs!
We hope you liked this article. Watch our video below if you want to see it in action! We look forward to the release of the Evscope (now available HERE) to welcome thousands of new comers into the hobby of astronomy.
Clear Skies,
Galactic Hunter
